InfraRed
by ArboursGreen
Summary: She goes to school and comes home, rinse and repeat. It’s a routine that helps her quietly and firmly act like everything is okay, that nothing's really changed.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:** I actually started to write this sometime in December (!!), planning on posting it pretty soon after. Or at least before the Back 9 started up again. Well, I got one of those right ;) This takes place after "Wheels" but before "Sectionals". I have three chapters planned out for this, but I'm posting the first two together since Chapter 1 is relatively short. I'd love to hear from you, so please let me know what you think!

**Disclaimer:** I most certainly do not own anything.

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The last several weeks were horrible for Tina. But she deals with it the she always has and there are no outbursts, no angry shouting directed at the person involved. She goes to school, goes to glee practice and comes home, rinse and repeat. It's a routine that helps her quietly and firmly act like everything is okay, that nothing's really changed. But it all comes to a head eventually one chilly night after yet another Glee practice in which he studiously avoids her gaze and Kurt gives her that infuriating pitying look that says, _"Oh, honey."_

It's around midnight and in her bedroom Tina is blasting Hole's _Live Through This _at what must be an illegal volume. Paramore just isn't gonna do it right now. Not with how angry-no, _pissed-_she's feeling at the world, at Artie. The words he's said to her that night (the most he's said to her since then) are ringing in her head and she just needs something, anything to drown it out. For once she's grateful that her mother is working late as there is no one around to pound on her door and tell her to turn it down. Most importantly there's no one around to see how self-indulgent she thinks she's being right now. The Cohen-Changs do not do anger (or any extreme emotion it seems), and they most certainly do not make a scene.

People think that she and her parents are from different planets, that their perfectly tailored designer business suits and immaculate leather briefcases don't mesh with her fishnets, black hoodies and dark blue nail polish. She thinks they're wrong. Sure, she'd rather be tied to a chair and forced to listen to Miley Cyrus until her ears bleed before she'd apply to the Wharton School and spend the rest of her life in business meetings, but underneath that there's no denying that they're kindred in more ways than just blood.

What makes her parents so good at what they do is that they both have one hell of a poker face. Calm, cool and collected always. And Tina knows that she's just as good as they are.

Rachel gets yet another solo? That's okay. Slushie facial and it's not even 9am? Fine, she's bought a change of clothes. Best friend and the biggest crush she's ever had pulverizes her heart and ditches her so fast her head spins a little? Well, that's alright too. She'll just deal with it the way she always has.

With cautious silence, her face a blank, stiff mask.

But tonight, she doesn't want that. She wants to throw things, specifically every single mix CD he's ever made her. She's embarrassed to look back and see herself pouring over the track lists and over-analyzing every song for hints that he might like her. She wants to put on her combat boots with the steel toes and kick holes into the wall. But she doesn't. Because she is her parents 'child and she is not going to make a scene.

She throws her Jack Skellington pillow at the wall anyway.

Its soft 'thunk' is unsatisfying.

About twenty minutes later when she's calmed down a little, she sits in her bathroom staring down a container of Manic Panic hair dye in Infra-Red wondering if she wants to do it. She wants to express how angry she is and dying her hair seemed less messy than throwing and smashing things. As a bonus, the cleanup is a little easier. She goes ahead and decides to do a test run. She bleaches a thin strand of her hair then applies the dye. It comes out bright red. She smiles at the little strand in the mirror. It's violent red. Fuck You Red. She smirks at her own reflection. The strand is a little bit behind her neck and hidden beneath a curtain of black and bright blue but she likes knowing that it is there.

But then the next song comes on, slower and a little quieter than the rest of the album. It's sadder too, or maybe she's just projecting… she doesn't know.

_I am the girl you know can't look you in the eye  
I am the girl you know so sick I cannot try  
I am the one you want can't look you in the eye  
I am the girl you know  
I lie and lie and lie_

She sighs. The red isn't her though. Well, it's her now but she knows she'll regret it if she goes all Infra-Red. Bright cobalt blue is her favorite color and she thinks that says more about her than Fuck You Red.

She turns off her stereo and gets ready for bed. She crams her textbooks and her iPod in her messenger bag and pulls back her flowery duvet cover that hasn't been replaced since she was twelve. She lies in bed, and the silence and darkness of her room seems suffocating after the loud music. She tries not to think about him.

She keeps the hidden red streak in her hair.


	2. Chapter 2

Tina is having the second crappiest day of her life. She wakes up late for school because she forgot to set her alarm. Speed-walking to McKinley (all she can really do in her chunky boots) she slips on a patch of ice and tears her new black pants at the knee. She'd be okay with it and call it part of her fashion statement if her pants weren't also caked in mud and her knees, bleeding scratches.

She is late to first period and misses a pop quiz in chemistry (of course). Ms. Spencer gives her an icy look when she stumbles into class during the quiz and tells her that if she's going to be late next time then not to bother showing up at all. She sits out the rest of the period in a musty corner of the library.

Luckily, the next three class periods goes by without a hitch. She's on her way to lunch, thankful for once that Mercedes and Kurt's incessant gossipy chatter will distract her. She suddenly feels ice cold wetness on her face and trickling down her back.

"Heads up, freak," says a jock. His cronies laugh and fistbump each other. Tina stands still in the middle of the hallway and by the time she's composed enough to react, they're halfway down the hall.

Of course, she'd have to be slushied now. She sniffs her sticky wet hair. Lime. Ugh. And of course it had to be her least favorite flavor. She feels the icy wetness seep down the back of her pants and into her boots.

Great.

It's lunch period so there aren't too many people around to jeer at her some more. She heads to the nearest girl's bathroom.

Once inside, she loses it. The slushie, the quiz, the people staring and snickering, losing her best friend, it's all just too much right now. Crying and biting her lip in an effort not to sob, she drops her messenger bag on the floor and flips her head and hair into the sink. She tries to rinse as much out as she can but since she _still_ smells like that gross artificial lime, she resorts to shampooing with the hand soap. The pink, gooey industrial cleanser always seemed to take a layer of epidermis off along with grime, but she tries not to think about that as she applies a copious amount to corn syrup-sticky hair.

Once done, she turns on the hand dryers.

Nothing.

She slams her fist against the silver button but it mocks her by sputtering a few times and then shutting off. She sighs. Wonderful. Her hair is wet, her pants are luckily black but they're also damp and as she takes stock of herself in the mirror she can see that she looks like a drowned rat. Red rimmed eyes, straggly wet hair. She has started to buy waterproof mascara so that doesn't run.

So there's that.

She tries to dry her hair the best she can by squeezing it in a clump of toilet paper. Sighing when it's clearly not gonna work, she gathers her things to leave.

As she turns for the door, she catches a flash of red. She wraps the bright red strand around her index finger and looks at the reflection. She feels a little calmer.

_It'll be okay_, she tells herself. Sure, she's missed lunch, but she has study period next and maybe she can sneakily eat a granola bar. But first she has to get changed. Her locker and change of clothes are at the other end of the school, and she hurries out the door.

She's in front of the choir room when Puck passes by.

" 'Sup T-T-Tina," he says as he struts by, not even looking at her.

She can't take it anymore. She thought she'd be okay but maybe not. All the anger and frustration from the last few days just boil over.

She's thinking of the Fuck You Red hair as she says very loudly, "_I don't stutter_!"

He turns around, and as she looks at him--all imposing in his red and white letterman jacket and sports duffel bag--she remembers the seemingly hundreds of taunts and slushies that he's been behind.

_When will she learn to just keep her mouth shut about certain things??_

"_I know_, Cohen. Damn, take a joke once in awhile."

She takes a deep breath. Besides Artie and Mercedes (who presumably told Kurt), she's never told anyone that her stutter was fake to begin with. Everyone else probably thought she went to a really good speech therapist or something.

Well, she started this; she might as well finish it.

"I don't stutter...anymore. I--I never did to begin with."

Silence. She sees his brows knit together when he realizes…

"Are you freaking serious? You _made up_ a stutter?"

"Yeah."

"What the hell for?"

"I was shy and…I didn't want people to talk to me or--or bother me."

He looks at her up and down, and she's never felt this uneasy. She suddenly feels sorry for all of those frogs they make kids dissect in Anatomy. She squirms a little. He takes in her rumpled clothes, her damp hair.

"Well, that worked out pretty well, huh?"

"Yeah."

"That's pretty fucked up, though."

"I know," she replies. _Boy, do I know, _she thinks. "We all have our little lies though don't we?"

She thinks she sees something click behind his eyes, but after a moment it's gone.

She continues, "I just didn't want to live mine any longer."

They're both looking everywhere but at each other. The whole school knows he's in glee but that doesn't mean he likes being seen talking to the gleeks. He finally looks at her uncomfortably, unsure what to do next. She doesn't know either. He shifts his duffel bag to his other shoulder. Her fingers play with the pins on her messenger bag. She waits for him to say something, so that she can be dismissed.

"Well at least you can string together an entire sentence in under an hour now. I have to say that makes you a shitload less annoying."

She smiles a little, her eyes still downcast.

"Anyways," he mumbles as he starts to walk away, "I can't stand around all day listening to your life story."

She doesn't point out that he kind of just did.

He turns around suddenly. "Where are you off to?"

His question, seemingly out of left field, startles her.

"I—I…"

"'Cause Karofski and his douchebags are hanging by the parking lot exit," he explains.

"Oh. Okay. Thanks," she says as they both walk away. She alters her path to her locker a little, avoiding Karofski--and taking her right into the path of Artie.

He looks at her wet hair, her disheveled appearance and his face scrunches up in that way it does when he's very concerned. She'd be happy about this if she wasn't having such a bad day.

"Are you okay?"

She sort of can't believe he's talking to her again after what seems like forever. She's caught off guard to say the least.

"I—yeah. Just got slushied."

"Oh."

"I'm going to go get my change of clothes," she says in a rush, not meeting his blue eyes. She quickly steps around him and hurries off.

"Okay," he anwers quietly, but she's already gone


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's Note**: First off, I want to thank everyone who favorited, alerted or reviewed my story. All your kind comments are so lovely to read! Gold stars for all of you!

Here's the last (?) chapter, I hope you enjoy it.

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Later that afternoon, the entire glee club holds practice in the auditorium. Rachel insisted that seeing the stage will help them all to better visualize their respective choreography. Currently, she is sitting on the stage floor manically diagramming out choreography in glitter gel pens. Girls are glittery pink, boys glittery blue and she and Finn as the leads are of course in gold.

Everyone is either seated on the stage floor pretending to listen, or standing off the side not pretending to listen at all. Mike and Matt are having a cheesy dance moves competition. Mike is apparently winning by doing the running man. Mr. Schue sits in one of the auditiorium seats and speaks rapidly in hushed tones into his cell phone. His divorce lawyer must have called again.

Tina feigns interest in Rachel's and Mercedes' argument ("Oh hell no! Why are you and Finn always up front? What're we supposed to do in the back? Sway?!") but really she's coming up with things she should've said to Artie earlier in the day. She studies the purple laces on her combat boots as she tries to come up with something more clever and biting than "I got slushied". Maybe a haughty "_How nice of you to speak to me again" _or even an angry and more direct "_Screw you"._

There's a loud click from Mr. Schue's ancient flip-phone as he angrily snaps it shut. He stands to face the club, pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs loudly.

"Ok, guys, from the top!"

The rest of glee practice goes by quickly. Tina chats with Mercedes and Kurt, Brittany shares a stick of blueberry gum with her ("It looks like your hair!"), and everyone sings backup for Finn and Rachel.

By the time practice is over, Tina is surprised to find herself physically exhausted even though most of her exertions today have been emotional. She promises to call Kurt and Mercedes later so they can all watch Project Runway together, but she's already thinking of excuses to bow out and go to bed early. She's just down the hall when she realizes she left her favorite red beanie in the auditorium. She trudges back, thinking about how weird the school feels when it's empty. Like it ceases to be this prison she's forced to go to for seven hours a day where people slushy her, or trip her and where she occasionally gets to do what she loves which is to go to art studio or glee. It's quiet, almost eerily so. Glee practice ran late again (partly due to some minor squabbling and partly due to Mr. Schue's timeouts for phone calls), so anyone that's still at school are the athletes and they're at the other end of school, on the football field.

She steps onto the stage at the auditorium and finds her beanie—with Artie. He's holding it and when he sees her come in he looks almost guilty.

If they weren't fighting she'd tease him about it, ask him if he's trying out a new look. Instead, she smiles shyly as he hands it back to her and she fits it on her head.

"Hey," he says.

"Hey."

"I, um…forgot my glove," he explains, waving his crumpled yellow glove.

"Oh."

_Gee, this isn't uncomfortable at all, _she thinks. She stands there, in the middle of the stage with him as if they were starring in a play.

He nods a little to himself, a gesture she interprets to say _Okay, now that I got that over with…_ and wheels away. It's so much like last time, him going away leaving her to chastise herself over the things she should have said that she goes over to the edge of the stage and sits down to compose herself a little.

"I'm sorry," he says in a rush, as if his statement was all one word. She jumps a little, startled. While she was fishing around for her iPod in her messenger bag, he's wheeled back in. He's a couple feet away, adjusting his glasses nervously.

For what seems like the millionth time today, she's shocked. Tina had always thought that of the two of them, if they ever repaired what has happened between them, _she_ would be the one to apologize. She's even practiced an apology speech for whenever that day came. She went over it lying in bed, during first period history, walking home from school .

But now, she can't even remember what she wanted to say except,

"I'm sorry, too." It's nearly a whisper the way she says it, and she wishes she had Mercedes' or even Rachel's bold, brash confidence right about now.

She fiddles with the chain on her skirt, her stockinged legs hanging over the edge of the stage into the orchestra pit. She doesn't receive a reply to her apology.

She's afraid that he still might be mad at her. In her panic, she starts talking at a frantic pace.

"I didn't stutter just because I hated speeches. Well, I do, but that's not it…" This is not the eloquent speech she imagined for herself. "I'm…afraid of people. I'm too weird and awkward and they make me nervous and when I got my first 'welcome slushie' I thought that my suspicions were right. That people only hurt you if you let them in too much…or at all." She takes a deep breath and continues, "But when I met you, it was different. You didn't make fun of me or laugh when I got tossed into those stupid dumpsters. And by the time I realized that I…" she struggled with the next part.

"When I realized that I'd made a friend, it was too late to say anything."

She looks over at him, surprised that he's suddenly much closer. While she was giving her little speech, he has managed to get out of his chair and sit himself next to her. Now, his legs are hanging off the stage too and he's leaned up against his chair, hands folded in hi lap. His blue eyes are gentle as they look into her slightly teary ones and they give her the courage to go on.

"I never meant to hurt you…or anybody."

She tries to lighten the mood. "You should've seen my mom's face when I told her. She looked like her head was gonna explode, like that guy's in _Scanners_."

He lets out a little chuckle and she's reminded of how she's missed that sound over the past weeks.

"I like you," she says and it takes all of her willpower not to say 'I _like-like_ you' because saying that out loud sounds like one of those dumb notes kids pass to each other in middle school.

_Do you like me? Check Yes, No, Maybe._

And even though it's so much more than that, she still hopes that if she were to surreptitiously pass him that note, he'd check _'yes'_.

Artie's voice is soft as he speaks.

"I don't like fighting with you. Or being mad at you." He slips his ungloved hand into hers and squeezes firmly, once. "I'm sorry about…that night. I should've stayed to hear you out. I just couldn't then. I'm glad I do finally get to hear your side, though." They both smile at each other, then he lets out a weary sigh.

"It's just..now you get to be someone different. And I'm still me…in this chair."

She turns to look at him fully, but he's looking up at the ceiling, at anywhere except her.

"Artie, I like you. I don't care about the chair." She gently places her hand on his chin to get him to look at her.

"You're the best person I know," she says delicately, searching his eyes with hers. "You're the only person I know who can still be funny, and kind, and help a friend out when she's completely useless at her math homework even after you've been locked in a port-a-potty or pushed down a ramp. I'd like you the same even if you could walk..or even if you had really bad hair like Puck's."

They both laugh.

"Well, now I'm really, _really_ sorry," he says smiling his goofy smile.

"I know," and she gently bumps he shoulder with his. "And I'm not really different now. I'm still the same old me. I like horror movies, the scarier the better, I hate chick flicks, I love the Ramones, I suck at trig, and I've got this best friend who's amazing."

They both sit in silence for a minute, his thumb brushing rhythmically against her knuckles.

"So we're okay?" he asks hopefully.

"More than okay," she answers. Smiling she holds out her hand and they shake, once, and the gesture is so cheesy they both giggle.

She helps him back into his chair and wheels him out of the auditorium. She feels like everything is brand new again, lighter. She looks down at him and is so happy to have him back that she abruptly stops the chair and hugs him from behind. She rests her chin on the soft shoulder of his sweater, breathing in the familiar scent of whatever detergent he uses. She wraps her arms around him and is comforted when she feels him hug her back tightly.

"What was that for?" he asks when they finally untangle.

She rolls her eyes. Boys are so dense.

"It's just nice to be back," she answers vaguely.

He turns around to look at her, a bright smile lighting up his face.

"It's good to have you back, Tee."

He reaches back suddenly and she feels him tug at her hair gently.

"What's this?"

She looks down at her red strand that she dyed seemingly so long ago. She blushes.

"Oh, I was thinking of dying my hair again. I was just testing it out. I don't think I'll keep it though." The dye served its purpose. Now, she can't wait to dye it back. That shade if red is definitely not her.

"I like the blue on you," he says.

"Me too. Although I was thinking maybe purple some time."

"That'd be cool too," he answers, smiling at her.

She gives in to an urge she's been fighting ever since they'd made up. She leans down to kiss him on the cheek—except, she goes in too fast, and he turns to her at the last minute and she really gets the side of his ear.

She laughs at herself and a little bit at Artie who, she is delighted to see, is blushing a dark shade of pink.

She's pretty sure she's blushing too but she ignores it while she rolls him forward again, suggesting they watch _Shaun of the Dead_ tonight instead of doing chemistry homework.

He agrees and they argue a little bit over who in glee would survive the longest in the event of a zombie apocalypse. All they can really agree on is that the two of them would definitely survive and that Karofsky would definitely be eaten first.

They walk out into the bright white sunshine of late afternoon, eyes squinting after being so long in the darkened auditorium. Tina looks at Artie and he reaches his hand back to hold onto hers as she grips the handle of his chair. She threads her fingers through his.

_It is definitely good to be back._

_

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A/N Part Deux: Thanks to everyone who's read this and stuck with it! I wanted to get this up before Tuesday and it looks like I *just* made it, haha. Please review? I'll even try and get Mike Chang to demonstrate his awesome running man moves for you ;)


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